Letters of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  Sunday, July 16 [1922]

  Dear Folks:

  Green and crisp they fluttered from their cozy envelopes, green and crisp and strong—out onto the counter of White’s Lunch. And I almost changed my order from egg sandwich to ham and eggs, but held myself in check as an exercise in self-control in the face of riches. I felt that had I changed the order to ham and eggs the short-order man would have thought I was putting on airs.

  One of the coyest jokes was the little joke in Father’s letter about our accepting it as a mute reminder although of course we had no need for it. Well, I celebrated by buying myself a fine big pair of boots for five and a half, and a fine grey shirt for ninety cents, and a haircut twelve days overdue, and a little stove for seven and a half, and a tank full of gasoline at 45 cents a gallon, and an admission to Yellowstone for seven and a half, and a malted milk for 20 cents, and a new timer for Hotspur for 60 cents (Hotspur’s total internal repairs to date amount to about a dollar and a half from New York City), and then we were off up the valley of the Shoshone, off to the west along a road that wound up and up—up so steeply that Hotspur many times had to blow his little horn to make the big lumbering cars get out of his way. Up past the Shoshone Dam, which is so high that the bottom of it, viewed from the top of it, seems like no part of it at all. So high as that—and yet hardly high at all compared to Sylvan Pass through which we must go to enter the Park. When we had mounted 8,500 feet we jumped over Hotspur’s side and made snowballs and threw them at the white-tailed deer and the marmots. And we looked across to where the Teton mountains were twenty miles away—and we couldn’t quite see them because the day was not clear enough.

  Near Hardin, Montana—which is the point from which I last wrote—is the ranch of Frank Heinrich, the largest cattle man in America. Ranching has changed greatly in the past generation. In the old days the cattle were turned out on vast ranges to forage for themselves. They were not fed—neither in summer nor in winter—and there were no fences. Each rancher sent out a wagon and riders twice a year to round up the herds. In the spring the men branded the calves, and in the fall they brought in the beeves for shipment. No one in particular owned any land in particular. Now the land is fenced and owned, and with the exception of Heinrich and one other man ranchers operate in the new style—that is, the cattle are ranged within definite bounds and in the winter they are fed occasionally on hay.

  Monday

  I was interrupted yesterday in order to drive the ranch children to a party next door. Next door in this case was six miles. In this country no one thinks to go even to the gate without taking the car. The beauty of it is you can sit on your front porch and see your company coming ten miles away. You have plenty of time to leisurely dust off the piano and start the eggs. It might seem to you that treeless country such as this would be painfully monotonous to the view. That’s because you have not seen the shadows, the buttes, the clouds, the herds, the riders, and the nights. . . .

  We slept on a little hill above Cody, and the next morning descended into town to partake of the last breakfast. Cody was preparing for the annual stampede—which is a sort of western county fair. Instead of having merry-go-rounds, balloon ascensions, and stock judging Cody goes in for bucking, bull dogging (steer throwing), roping, racing, and six-shooting. Everybody between the Mississippi and the Pacific drops round for the show, which lasts three days—July 4, 5, and 6.

  Cody was hot. The sun becomes indignant at the broad-brimmed hats of the boys, so it curls down round them, and up under them. It ripples and crackles along the curbing at noon. . . . Dead worms on the side walks fry and sizzle, and the upholstery of autos left in the street bakes and cracks and burns your breeches. The little thermometers on store fronts mount as best they can, and then give it up as a bad job and settle down to a steady 100°.

  We sandpapered a dance floor that afternoon—a roofless, open air thing. At night we were not broke by five dollars. We shaved, down by the river. We ate, and found the five was lost. Cush lost it from his breeches.

  Lots of things happened. Cush washed dishes. . . . I bought a concession on the curb. With small boys I built a skin game, and later a wheel, and ran them on the hot days and the freezing nights.

  Yellowstone is like an aquarium—all sorts of queer specimens, with thousands of people pressing in to get a glimpse. The Park is spectacular beyond my Corona (I should say beyond Cush’s Corona—I sold mine to a bystander one time in a moment of starvation), and it is well and unobtrusively policed. But it is so obviously “on exhibition” all the time. Inspiration Point, for instance—on the rim of the wonderful Yellowstone canyon. Everything has a stupid name like that. Railings have initials on them.

  They tried to fine us $500 for leaving a fire going in the upper basin. We were glad of the compliment, for at the moment we were well under three dollars. I told the ranger that it was perfectly absurd, the charge that I had left a fire. I told him that during sixteen weeks in the Canadian woods I hadn’t left any fires, and if there was any fire where we had stopped the day before it was built up by one or more of the twenty tourist parties who had encircled us when we boiled an egg. He telephoned these statements in a loud voice to the United States District court at Mammoth, and the court answered, “Oh hell, let them go.”

  . . .The Hart Ranch, where I am working for grub by proving myself a factotum, looks across to the white peaks of the Crazy Mountains. There is Mr. Harry (Harry Hart) who came here from England in the eighties, and who calls out to me after every meal, “I say, help yourself to my tobacco there, will you?” Mr. Harry and his long moustaches can be found at 6 a.m., garbed in a tremendous straw sombrero and leather puttees, fussing with bridles and ring bolts in the horse stable, and at 6 p.m., garbed in immaculate tweeds, sitting down merrily to dinner. There is Nan (Mrs. Harry Hart), who works like Mae Gleason and talks like Mrs. McCarten,1 and who has bobbed hair. Nan is the genius of the ranch—she bakes chocolate cake and grinds Ford valves with equal vigor and success. And there is Mrs. Brown, a person of doubtful nationality and practically no parentage, who just arrived yesterday to take charge of cooking for the hay crew. Mrs. Brown never got to go to any school, she says. Her outlook on life is of the darkest. “I sometimes wish it had been the good Lord’s will that I die along with my mother,” she so often says. . . . And there is Al, who sits with Fred in the evenings and talks about flea-bitten mares. And there is Fred, who sits with Al in the evenings and talks about the same thing. Al shaves only once a week, because the whiskers sort of keep the mosquiters away, he says. Fred shaves every day, and sits up very straight because he was two years in the Army. Al and Fred are hay hands. We eat hot cakes with them at 6 o’clock every morning. And there is Torvald, another hay hand, who just got in from Oregon. Torvald has too few teeth. And there is Nipper, who is lying at my feet at this very moment. . . .

  Today is Friday

  Well, Cush got fired yesterday, so I guess we will be moving on toward the north. It will be hard to leave this wonderful ranch, but it will be better to leave before we are asked to leave.

  My thanks for the birthday gifts, and my love.

  Yours entirely,

  Andy

  • Frank L. Morse was the head of the Morse Chain Works in Ithaca. He had developed a pocket-sized calculating machine, or “arithmometer,” and had slipped a few to Cushman and White when they stopped in Ithaca on their way west, hoping they could peddle them in the course of their wanderings. They tried—with no great success.

  To FRANK L. MORSE

  Spokane, Washington

  9 August 1922

  Dear Mr. Morse:

  This is to acknowledge the receipt of the two adding machines. With the exception of twelve cans of evaporated milk, one gallon of gas, and sixty-four cents they represented our worldly estate when we drew in at Glacier Park Station.

  I don’t know whether you have ever been in that town. It consists mainly of four stores and an excellent view of the mountains. Garbed splendi
dly in our last white shirts and armed to the teeth with arithmometers we set boldly forth. It soon became apparent that the town fairly seethed with adding machines. The smallest log cabin had one. I never saw a town so well equipped to add anything at a moment’s notice. One lady listened patiently to me for some thirty-five minutes and then remarked, timidly, “I think I like my electric Burroughs better.”

  My most enjoyable session was at the butcher shop. The butcher was a small man who carried an enormous knife. After forty minutes of demonstration, during which time I added up to seventy-three thousand and back again, he gazed wistfully up from the counter and murmured, “Come in tomorrow when I’m not so rushed.”

  It occurred to us that with one gallon of gas remaining we could make Browning, a town, as Cush says, of a thousand souls and several hundred Blackfeet Indians. So we went back. At two o’clock I consummated a sale with a gentleman who sat eating fish in an extremely small short-order cafe. He had his mouth so full of fish when he bought the arithmometer that I hardly knew whether he said Yes or No.

  We left town, after putting the receipts from the sale into gas, oil, rice, and oatmeal. On the strength of it we were able to take a five-day walking trip through Glacier Park, crossing the continental divide twice. . . .

  If I ever have a child I shall name it Arithmometer in loving memory of your kindness. This small typewriter cannot adequately express my very sincere appreciation of your interest—it can only beg pardon for delaying this long in acknowledging it.

  We are enclosing a money order for ten dollars and would be glad to have three or four more machines if you could send them to us General Delivery, Olympia, Washington.1 We owe you a lot more than ten dollars, but at the present time we can do no more than merely admit it openly. I wish you would let us know if you ever go broke so that we can ship you a couple of wash boilers or a brace of player-pianos or something to keep you going. . . .

  Very sincerely,

  E. B. White

  To JESSIE AND SAMUEL WHITE

  [Yakima, Washington]

  [August 1922]

  . . .Everywhere water is trickling in tiny ditches. There is no rain—the weather is entirely dependable: perfect for church picnics.

  In my last letter I believe I ended abruptly on Gunsight Pass—left you high and dry, so to speak. It was high, in truth. The trail led across a snow field near the summit, and growing next the snow were wild flowers. On the other side of the continental divide the trail led down to the border of Lake Ellen Wilson, then up over another mountain to Sperry chalet. I am sending you under separate cover a booklet which I ran across, containing good pictures of the Park.

  From Sperry we descended three or four thousand feet through spruce forests to Lake McDonald, stopping an hour during the afternoon to pick huckleberries for supper. We slept that night on the edge of the lake, and were up early the next morning to begin the climb to Granite—a distance of twenty miles. All morning we went up an easy grade, following along the creek. We stopped for lunch where the real climb began, and had about seven grape nuts apiece and a can of tomato soup. I never experienced such an altitudinous mountain. At about six or seven thousand feet we began to run out of calories: the tomatoes in the soup had disappeared through the pores of our respective skins and the grape nuts had begun to rattle. The height of the Woolworth Building is about five hundred feet. We did that ten times over. (Pause a moment to get the full effect of the thing.) What’s more, we were traversing a southern slope, which meant no water. You see, the snows do not last on the southern slopes through the summer so they are dry. The opposite slopes have streams every few feet along the trail. I did come to a tiny rill near the top, however. Cush was ahead on the trail, and I arrived at the place together with a black-tailed deer who was just as thirsty as I was. It was a beautiful doe—she had a nice wet black nose and attractive eyes. Together we tippled at the tiny water hole, and had many a long drink. . . .

  In the morning we crossed back over the divide through Swiftcurrent Pass, and made Many Glaciers by noon. So you see we hadn’t wasted much time, for it was Monday morning when we crossed Gunsight and Wednesday morning when we crossed back over Swiftcurrent. We were five days in the Park. . . . We covered about sixty miles—which is the equivalent of about 160 miles counting the ups and downs.

  Hotspur was where we had left him. He was probably glad of the rest. Camel-like, he had retained enough gas to make the Canadian border—so we started from Bab straight north. I made a dollar and a half by accident. We spent the half for delicacies and kept the dollar for luck. A small half-breed girl took it away from us at the U.S. customs. She said it was the fee for crossing. She lied most dreadfully—but we didn’t find that out until a week or so later. At Cardstom we discovered we still had two gallons left, so we took a look at the Mormon temple and started for Macleod, fifty miles away. Through Alberta’s plains went our small car, and flew without a pause into the very heart of Macleod. From a little distance you would think Macleod had about a hundred thousand people. It is built up in the shape of a square—but there is nothing in the center. We had nothing in our center either when we got there. We loafed around the Dominion Employment Agency for a while and then went down the creek about a mile, crossed a bridge, and swam and ate cocoa or something and went to bed. The next day the town was all closed up on account of a traveling fair which was coming through. Blackfeet had come in for miles around. They were camped next to us on the creek—they and all their horses and dogs and women. Indians never go anywhere without taking everything that they own along with them. In the afternoon Cush took a job digging an irrigation ditch somewhere to the north about twenty miles. I hocked my Sun charm1 for a couple of dollars and bought a steak. Next day I dressed up and sold an arithmometer to a man in a notion store. After three or four nights Cush showed up. We bought gas at 55 cents a gallon and oil at 60 cents a quart and sped through Crow’s Nest Pass in the Canadian Rockies. Two punctures and two blowouts in as many hours left us again penniless and our tireless car tireless indeed. We gazed about and observed that we were at Galloway, British Columbia. Galloway boasted only one structure—the railway station on the C.P.R. Even that was closed permanently. Forest fires were burning in desultory fashion through the country, and a ranger said he would give us a job putting them out if we wanted it. We slept on the station platform. At seven the next morning I set out afoot with Cush’s Corona, toward Cranbrook—thirty-two miles away. I walked and walked and recited blank verse to the ancestral mountains for my own amusement. At four I was back at Galloway without the Corona, in whose stead I produced a Goodyear tire and seven dollars and a half. We mended Hotspur’s tired feet and started riding. By the moon we rode until 2:30 the next morning, at which time we both fell asleep for the sixth time. The next morning we were waked up by being walked upon by cows. We drove to Kingsgate—only a few miles away, and waited two hours for the customs to open up. Then upon a road unsurfaced, ungroomed, and uncouth to Bonners’ Ferry, Idaho, where we halted for breath and ice-cream before plunging down to Sandpoint and Spokane.

  Eleven miles out of Spokane we glided upon a concrete road—the first pavement since Minnesota.

  I got seventeen letters in Spokane, and Cush got only one, so it was a tremendous victory. News from home was very welcome, and you should see the amount of waffles we bought with Father’s Postscript. Spokane goes in for waffles—there are waffle houses all down the street. We also bought a spare tire and a room at the Y.M.C.A. . . .

  The next day we went south, and crossed the Snake River to Walla Walla. Cush calls it Walladitto. You would marvel at the wheat country—very different from Alberta and the Dakotas. It is rolling, like New York State, except that it rolls less frequently and with a grander motion. We passed through the Peleuse region just at harvest time. The yellow grain was in little cocks in the fields, like polka dots.

  Hotspur had internal injuries the next day at noon. He broke down and cried on the banks of the Columbia River.
It was Kennewick. “It’s the rear end,” said the silent ferryman, sagely. “Yes,” I whispered.

  So I took a bucket, down by the banks of the Columbia, and I began taking parts out of Hotspur. I took and took and took. . . . I removed everything south of the front seat. “Come on on the boat,” said the silent ferryman. So we took the rear end aboard the stern-wheeler, and placed it and the bucket next the boiler. Plump, plump, went the parts into the bucket, while my busy pliers took out cotter-pin after cotter-pin.

  “It’s the main drive pinion,” murmured the silent ferryman. “Yes,” I said.

  So I bought a new main drive pinion for a dollar. And we bought something to eat. And there was left a dollar and a half. And in the gloaming I dove off the stern of the ferry into the cool waters of the Columbia. And the dollar and a half, being hot also, dove too when I wasn’t looking. We slept that night on the ferry-wharf, and observed many shooting stars—for the Heaven was full of them. Rosy-fingered dawn found me at work with my bucket by my side, giving each part its due, and replacing it in its allotted place. Twenty-four hours after I had started the previous day I was through. (I smell something ungrammatical in that sentence.) We took three baths, one right after the other, and shaved.

  “Got anything to eat on?” inquired the silent ferryman. “Yes,” we said, playing with the truth woefully. “They found your eight bits—the kids were diving,” he said, lying incontinently and handing us a silver dollar.2

  Off went Hotspur, airily on his brand new pinion. And here we are at Yakima.

  “Heigh, ho; heigh, ho; heigh, ho!” calls Mr. Van Vliet at six thirty in the morning. And we get up and eat tremendous cantaloupes and innumerable bacon and eggs and then hie us to the pear orchards, where we pick bartlett pears at 30 cents an hour for ten hours. Or else we roll over and go to sleep again, awakening in time to go swimming in the afternoon.